Live webchat with best selling author Jane Green - Mon 2 July 1.30-2.30pm

distaffgran

How have you found having children has combined with being a writer? Has the pram in the hall been a problem? - or were you always well off enough to have help?

Oh God. Am laughing. I was always the breadwinner, and although I wouldn't have described myself as being well off, I did have a young girl come to help in the mornings so I could write.

My afternoons were spent walking my colicky baby for hours round West Hampstead. If I tried to stop to get a coffee, he'd start screaming. I clearly remember my agent calling as I was going endlessly up and down the aisles of Woolworths in the Finchley Road, and asking where I was.

"you don't want to know," I replied, all thoughts of life as a glamourous bestseller having long gone out the window.

glammanana

Hi Jane, I love reading your books they always seem to have some experience that I have come across in my lifetime I find them so enjoyable,what career path would you have taken if you did not write these fab books,and at 60+ am I too old to consider putting pen to paper ??

You are NEVER too old! NEVER! Pick up that pen and start writing now! I wish more people would write their stories - whether memoirs or novels - and do believe that we do indeed all have a story to tell.

Had I not been a writer, I think perhaps a garden designer. Or architect. Or cook. Or jeweller. Something creative for certain.

flowerfriend

DiL introduced me to your books. I am 65 she is 36. We both enjoy your books enormously. Now my closest two friends enjoy them too because of my recommendations. They are 59 and 63. So I am guessing that your books appeal to a wide age range. Did you have an idea of an age group for whom you wanted to write when you started and has that changed?

I started writing for women like me - 27, and am now writing for women mid-thirties to sixties/seventies I would think. I believe you have to have had a certain kind of life experience to fully appreciate the books I write now - the young single girls have no interest in reading about blended families...

redamanthas

Do you feel that it is ever too late to start writing? And is it important to get your work seen and accepted by an agent rather than contacting publishers directly? How did you begin to approach for publication when you started and has it change?

Never too late. I'm not too sure what to say about an agent. In the old days I always said absolutely, but more and more people in the US are self-publishing, and doing so successfully, so I'm not entirely sure what to advise. Going down the traditional route, you must have an agent. Go through books you love or are similar to the one you have written (and you must have finished before you do anything), and read the acknowledgments to find out who their agent is.

Get hold of a copy of The Writer's Handbook at the Library and find the address, then send three chapters, a great synopsis, and a cover letter. The synopsis is terrifically important, as are the chapters.

Best of luck!

newt148

When writing and the subject grinds to a halt what advice to restart or enliven the either the character or the topic? and does this happen or is it just me.....
many thanks sue (smile)

Hello Sue! It happens to all of us, all of the time. The only advice I can give is to keep going. Sometimes it helps to skip that section and jump to another, coming back to that, but whatever you do, don't walk away or stop writing - the more you write the easier it is. Good luck!

fridaygran

Hello Jane, it's lovely to have you on Gransnet. I love your books and I wanted to ask whether you plot meticulously before you start or whether you work out the story as you go along?

Hello fridaygran - lovely to be here! I'm working with a new editor, and she is definitely a fan of the higher concept plot, which I'm quite enjoying. Having said that, I have always focused a little more on the characters and let them tell their own stories. I have a rough idea of the beginning, middle and end, and know that I can always refine the plot in the editing stage.

granIT

Do you think your books have changed as you have grown older? Have your preoccupations changed? And has the tone and style, or have they stayed the same?

The books today are completely different from the earlier ones! The first few were far harder: more sarcastic; edgier. Today they are softer, more vulnerable, as in fact I am softer and more vulnerable. I'm not sure if motherhood has changed me, or America! Either way I am now ridiculously soppy!

phishphood

I think you manage to produce about a book a year. Is that difficult? How many hours a day do you write for? Does it all come out right first time or is there a lot of rewriting involved?

Sadly lots of rewriting required these days. My writing is very much a job. I have to be enormously disciplined and write every day. I leave the house at around 8.30 and go to a writer's room, and write until around lunchtime every day, sometimes longer. I need the routine of leaving the house, and like being around other people, although I keep headphones in and listen to music, only taking them out if the writing's going well and I have time to chat!

swizzle

Which of your novels do you like the best? Do you have a favourite?

I do love The Beach House. I think it was really the first novel I wrote in which I could truly write about a happy ending because I finally had a happy ending of my own so I knew what it felt like.

So many of the novels before that had been about women who appeared to have it all but had been desperately unhappy - clearly my denial of my own situation!

And I loved the characters. They all felt like my friends, my family, the people I wished were in my life.

topcat

Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey and do you think 'mommy porn' is going to be a whole new genre or will it flare and fade away?

I suspect it will flare and fade away. I will confess that I started reading, then jumped from sex scene to sex scene. I didn't quite get it, but that's just me. Clearly it's tapping into something huge, and I am wondering if I should put a little more sex in my novels...thoughts?

(And I'm quite good at it...there is a bathtub scene in Mr Maybe that makes 50 Shades of Grey look like Enid Blyton. Just sayin')

dietarysupp

I don't want to pre empt The Patchwork Marriage - which I am very keen to read! - but what conclusions have you reached about the ingredients of a happy marriage?

That kindness is paramount. So often we don't consider our partners, we make jokes at their expense, we snap at them. Being mindful of how we treat them and being kind are crucial.

Also, I think, showing them you love them. We all become complacent, we are all busy, life gets in the way for all of us. But nothing makes us feel more loved than someone doing something to show us.

I wrote about acts of love in The Love Verb, that loving someone requires acts of love, it is about what you do, not what you say, and nowhere is that more important than in your marriage.

feistygran

I was intrigued by your answer to granIT which made me wonder if the ingredients of a bestseller are different in the US and the UK. Quite a few British writers have enormous success in the US - you included - but some don't. Can you see why that is or is it always a bit of a mystery why some authors are popular in different places?

I think it is often a bit of a mystery. Before Bridget Jones's Diary, Straight Talking was turned down by everyone in America. They "loved" it, but didn't know how to publish it. As soon as BJD became such a huge (and in the US, unexpected) hit, they were desperate for more.

I am very English, but with quite an American sensibility, which helps. I've always spent a lot of time in the States, since childhood, and perhaps I have an understanding, or a warmth, (or indeed a soppiness???!!) they can relate to?

twinsmum100

Love the bathtub scene in Mr Maybe, it always makes me nostalgic about an old boyfriend

nanaej

Do you think a great writer is one who sells thousands or more copies of a book or one who writes a book that critics laud but is not widely read?

Either. Both.

I had dinner recently with a writer who has had huge acclaim for her novel in all the magazines. She was upset that she hadn't been reviewed in the more serious press, but also upset she hadn't sold more copies.

You can't have it both ways. Both have their merits.

My best friend is a literary writer. Neither of us feel less/better than the other. We are both writers, both good in our field.

grancanaria

Did you move to America for love or work? Does it feel funny having your children grow up in a country that wasn't where you grew up - or does it feel completely like home?

I moved for work, then fell in love. It doesn't feel weird, although I did hate it when their accents changed from the very British to the American. They are now completely americanised, and whenever I try and correct their homework they roll their eyes and tell me I'm wrong, and they do it differently in America. (for differently, read incorrectly. Please. Since when did the 'u' in colour go awol?)

twinsmum100

I love your books! Jemima J is just my favourite character, so excited you have a new book coming out.

How would you define your style? Do you sit and write in Pj's and no make up, or are you glamtastic?

Thank you!! Am just starting to think about a future sequel to Jemima J...

I'm not glamtastic in the slightest!! I glam up a bit for photo shoots and events, but the real me is make-up free, hair scraped back in a clip, cargo pants, flip flops and a T-shirt.

Greasy skin as a teenager means I'm a lucky forty-something - no wrinkles, so the face is great, but the body is changing. Let's just say last summer was the summer of the bikini. This summer? Summer of the poncho...